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The persecuted

Thought we would take a short break from thestudy tonight and look at how Christians are persecuted today. As we look at 1 Peter I am reminded of the persecuted church throughout the rest of the world. We are persecuted in the United States too but it is of a different kind ,we are persecuted through the courts. On foreign soils most of the persecution comes from the religion of Islam. And Islam is creeping its Sharia Law into the United States and this is a very grave concern. I have a friend that is a missionary in Jakarta, he and his wife run a free medical clinic there, a few years ago, the Indonesian government seized all of the assets of the clinic and their personal assets. Why? Simply because they were Christians and running a Christian ministry. Their home was also set on fire, fortunately they were not home and the clinic suffered only minor damage. It was several months before they were operational again though. Islam is not the religion of peace that its adherents claim- they call it the religion of peace because they claim there will be worldwide peace when the whole world converts to Islam. That is where that comes from. Conversion to Isalm is by force- with Islam, it is either convert or be killed or become a third class citizen, basically, a slave to those who are Muslim. Islam is actually a political/military machine that is bent on world domination by force. Look at the economic conditions of Islamic controlled countries and compare to the western world. This persecution of Christians and Jews by Islam goes back to the founding of Islam in 622 A.D. The Dome of the Rock stands where the Jewish temple once stood in Jerusalem, In my mind, this is making a statement. The Dome of the Rock also is known as the Mosque of Omar. That would be Caliph Omar that it is named after. in 1009 AD Caliph Hakim began to persecute Christians and destroy churches. The Turks captured Jerusalem in 1071 and shut off Christians from the places they considered holy. The papacy responded to this by intiatiating the Crusades in 1095 to regain control. The Crusaders were armies sent basically under the churches direction. Their goal was to rid the Holy Land of Islam and they regained Jerusalem in 1099, and killed all the Muslim inhabitants. So, as you can see, this persecution goes back centuries . The fight for Jerusalem continues even today, right now the Jews(Israel) has control but that seems to be a day to day battle. The fight against Islam is not a new one, neither for the Christian nor for the United States. The Marine Hymn says “from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli” President Thomas Jefferson sent the Marines to Tripoli because Muslim pirates were attacking US frigates off the coast of Africa. As Islam increases its persecution of Christians and it will get worse, as we come closer and closer to Jesus return, and has our own government becomes more and more secular and pressures the church to go against the Word of God, take to heart Peters words in his letter to a persecuted people. To get a real good look at how bad the Islamic persecution against Christians is go to http://www.persecution.com